Read Antler Dust (The Allison Coil Mystery Series Book 1) for Free Online

couldn’t make the transition. Gravity won, or flight lost: one of the two.
    Allison pictured a businessman sleeping in first class, an empty glass of sauvignon blanc on his dinner tray, a paperback thriller propped open on the synthetic blanket draped over his swollen gut. His mouth drooping slightly ajar, making the snoring even more irritating for his seatmate. Allison had been there, oblivious to the approaching danger.
    Two years now in the mountains and she was beginning— barely beginning—to consider the fact that she had been lucky. Another few seconds further up and the drop would have been an exponentially greater slam to reality. Another few seconds further up and 31 dead would have been 119 dead.
    Death, she had learned, is simply a corpse you carry around underneath your skin. Until one day it pops free.
    ****
    The snow caught the FATE followers off guard but not off their game. A few returned early to warm their hands by the bonfire at base camp, but most trickled back in small, elated bunches and the spirits of the camp began to soar.
    The ones returning were greeted with a wave of applause, some of it generated by bare palms and some of it generated by the soft, puffy, repetitive whomp of two mittens coming together. There were smiles all around. The two lame reporters were long gone, off to meet their deadlines or appointments in a bar.
    “People!” shouted Ellenberg over the general din. Everyone stopped immediately. “We’ve got a pot of vegetarian chili and corn muffins almost ready. If anyone thinks they don’t have enough warm blankets or clothes for the night, please let us know.”
    There was silence all around.
    “Good. Again, congratulations. Let’s sound off, to make sure.”
    “One,” said Ellenberg.
    “Two,” said a male voice across the fire. The count climbed quickly to fourteen.
    “Fifteen?” said Ellenberg. “Fifteen? Where is fifteen?”
    “He was behind me in line yesterday,” said a husky woman whose head poked out from a turquoise blanket. “Not a large guy at all, not much to him. He was struggling with the hike. Had trouble breathing. Didn’t seem all that comfortable.”
    Ellenberg remembered him all too well. He looked like a kid, hadn’t said much. He had stared at her from a seat near the front of the bus during the entire bus ride. He was the frail-looking one with the Red Sox cap. He could have been twenty-five; he could have been twelve. What she had seen of his scalp was hairless. His nose was a button and his cheeks were puffed hard, pink and frail. On the hike in, he had sputtered and coughed much more than the others and she had asked him directly if he was going to be able to make it. The answer was “yes” and the smile that went with it said don’t worry .
    “Does anyone know where he pitched his tent?”
    “There was a tent forty or fifty yards down in a small aspen grove. That way.” The voice belonged to an older man, thin with a long gray beard. He pointed off down the slope. “I was talking with a small guy who was putting it up yesterday.”
    “Does anybody here claim that tent?” she said. Nobody spoke.
    “Could you show me?” said Ellenberg. The chatter came to a halt as Ellenberg passed the man a flashlight. The group headed off.
    They bumped around for three or four minutes in the dark, plunging through snow-covered bushes, until they stood next to a tent that sagged on the sides from a build-up of snow.
    “Hello,” said Ellenberg. Please be there, she thought. “Anyone home?”
    No answer. Her companion began searching for the zipper to the front flap.
    “We can’t barge in,” said Ellenberg. “That’s private property. We don’t have his permission.”
    “You’re right,” he said, a touch chagrined.
    “Did you talk to him?”
    “I asked him why he was putting up his tent so far away from the rest of the camp. He shrugged and said he was a light sleeper, needed complete quiet. Seemed like a nice enough guy.”
    The